Sunday, September 25, 2011

32 Weeks

Apparently I am now a person who wakes up at 4:00 AM. I find this to be an incredibly annoying quality in myself. In related news, I can rarely stay awake past 10:00 PM. I know; I’m a real party.

Baby H, though... that kid is a total riot these days. He’s all sharp edges and lumpy bumps, stretching my abdomen into crazy shapes. It seems entirely possible that I am gestating an octopus. But I'm pretty sure I know who the dad is, and he is not an octopus, so, there's that. Baby H is also exceedingly clever and charming (obviously). This week I discovered that I could play a sort of “Baby Whack-a-Mole” with him. He juts a bit of himself out, I put my hand on it, and he wriggles and juts out someplace else. I hope this doesn’t count as baby harassment, because I find it hard to resist.

My crazy, angular baby is the weight of a jicama this week. No, I am not kidding you with this. Just under four pounds and 17-19 inches long, depending on whom you ask.

I am finding my own figure to be growing mostly straight outward these days. Like a belly torpedo. I imagine Baby H in there all Superman-style, trying to force me onward to the next adventure, because seriously, he is ready!

We are getting more ready every day. Yesterday, we toured the labor and delivery ward where we’ll welcome our little monster into the world. Meaning, most importantly, that Jasper now knows which entrances to use and where he should park. I keep telling him we can just park in the garage and walk in together, because I am smug like that, but he seems to like knowing where the short-term parking is so that he can get me in fast and move the car later. Because I guess labor can be pretty uncomfortable and I might not want to go for a walk? I mean... maybe. Then we attended a class on newborn care, where my baby’s daddy changed his first diaper (on a rubber, non-waste-producing “infant”). He also gave the baby an imaginary bath. I had to take our rubber baby's temperature, which is so how it’s going to be, I can tell you now. Then I had to give him lots of snuggles, because thermometers? In babies? That’s just rude. Throughout the entirety of the three-hour class we were required to hold our fake babies. I found myself idly bouncing him and rubbing his tush, like some sort of crazy person. I was pretty attached by the end.The main development that came out of class was that we are now considering cloth diapering again. And yes, we know it’s kind of crazy-sounding. We would use a service, though, so it would be about the same effort as disposable. Jasper’s mom used cloth diapers, obviously. (And if you don’t know why that’s obvious, you need to hear the story of how my husband grew up. It is such a good story.) But she had to wash them by hand. Yeah. BY HAND. With water that she pumped up out of the ground. So, cloth diapering with a service sounds pretty posh by comparison. We’ll see... maybe I’ll tell you more about it, as our plans develop. Or maybe not, because diapering! Gross!Number of prenatal yoga classes Baby H has attended: 3How we feel about this: Gotta be honest... we are not loving the prenatal yoga. It is slooooow.... and boooooring...Number of baby-related classes Jasper and I have attended: 3Number of baby-related classes still in our future: 3

Number of car seats installed in Jasper's car: 1 (yeah, he's pretty dang ready to do this thing at this point.)Number of blog-stalkers I have: 4How I feel about this: So flattered I could kiss you all on the mouth (but I totally won't, I promise). People, we are on the cusp of establishing a trend here. It’s all akin to dooce, without the post-Mormonism. And, okay, with roughly a million fewer readers. But that’s why we’re still on the cusp! The early days. You read me when! Also, I wonder if I will get more hits this week for mentioning dooce...Number of people who have touched the belly: 19, still. This has really stalled out.

Number of pregnancy colds I have suffered: 1, still in progress. Apparently this is pretty lucky because along with everything else, pregnancy suppresses your immune system so that you don't reject the parasite, er, baby. But I can tell you, this cold? It's pretty much thrashing me. I think it's because at this late and enormous state of pregnancy, I am already lower on energy and a little more generally uncomfortable than normal. So, add a bad cold to that and I am pretty much couch-bound in my patheticness.Baby H’s favorite foods: still fruit. and also, fruit. and also whining that we are hungry but nothing sounds good.Baby H’s favorite songs this week: Waltzing Matilda and that Michelle Branch one